Recently, Advocates K. Rakesh and Ameen Hassan K. approaches Kerala High Court challenging the "unilateral" freezing of bank accounts on the ground of complaints being registered on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCCRP).

National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal comes under the Central Government, The bench headed by Justice Viju Abraham directed the State Police Chief to submit a report in this regard and issued notice to the respondents. 

In the said matter, Petitioner submitted that his account got freezed as he has a savings bank account in the Kerala Gramin Bank, that a sum of Rs. 3.5 Lakhs was credited to the account as the 2nd instalment of the Kerala State Financial Enterprises (KSFE) loan, that was taken by him. From the said amount, Rs. 1.19 Lakhs was withheld by the Branch Manager of the Gramin Bank on the ground that a complaint had been registered against the 1st petitioner on the NCCRP portal. 

Similarly, in another case, the senior Manager and Branch Head of the Federal Bank, Trikaripur Branch, issued a notice stating that his account had been frozen as per the directions of the State Cyber Crime Cell, Gandhinagar, Gujarat. 

It was further submitted that his representation by the 2nd petitioner before the Gandhinagar Police Station was also not considered by the competent officer.

It has also been averred that in some of the cases, the notice issued by the investigation officer under Section 91 Cr.PC had been relied upon to freeze the bank accounts, which was also illegal since the said provision only enables the Investigation Officer to order production of documents.

The plea, therefore, seeks the issuance of a direction by the Court to the banks not to freeze the accounts without specific instructions under Section 102 CrPC, from the investigating officer who is investigating the Cyber Crimes.